


A Life to Die For

by EmmaDeMarais



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Temporary Character Death, Children, F/M, Family, Gen, Historical, Past, Protectiveness, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:12:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2807234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmmaDeMarais/pseuds/EmmaDeMarais
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Over the years as Abe grew up and his father Henry grew no older there had to come a day when the truth was found out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Life to Die For

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hilandmum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hilandmum/gifts).



When Abe was still very small he loved to sit on Henry’s lap and scratch his father’s beard. On Sunday mornings, Abigail would walk down the street from their tenement building to attend church, leaving Henry to give their son his breakfast. He cherished this one morning alone with his son; the rest of the time Abigail was such a wonderful mother he dared not intervene.

So after applesauce and mushy peas, Henry would read Abe the comics in the Sunday newspaper, awash in the contentment of fatherhood. Abe would coo with delight, his babble occasionally approaching a real word. He’d managed Mama and Dada and a few others so far, making his parents burst with pride.

As his infant son reached for his face, a flash of memory hit Henry – one of his own father. As a schoolboy he noticed his father’s sideburns turned grey before those of his classmates. He wondered when Abe might notice his own father not turning gray at all. But for today, those concerns melted away as baby Abe giggled and bounced with unfettered joy on his lap.

*

When Abe was ten they had to move – fast. A casual walk in the park had turned into a full blown panic. Henry’s greatest fear was not just being recognized from the past, but being found out by someone who’d seen him die. The man who called out to him in the park had been there in the war, been there to see a shell blow up in his face. The explosion must have been enough that the man assumed he’d been blown to pieces, not just transported to a lake far from the action where he emerged naked and very much safe and alive.

Abe, always an obedient son before, had thrown a tantrum at the news he had to leave his school and friends behind. Even Abigail had been taken aback by their son’s violent reaction and had tried to assuage him despite her own similar feelings. In the end Henry had just put his foot down and said there was to be no more discussion: they were leaving immediately.

To be safe they headed upstate for a spell, enrolling Abe in a small town grade school under a new last name. Explaining a new first name would have been too confusing for the boy and too hard to expect him to keep up. It was the first time Henry had to tell his child to just obey and not ask questions.

Until that time father and son had been close confidants in a loving family. The secret Henry had tried to protect his son from had created its first rift. Abigail protested, but Henry felt Abe was too young to understand why they’d had to run, why he was different.

*

At age fifteen Abe had become a bit of a sullen teenager. His love for his mother never dimmed, but his frustration with his father’s rules – no friends can come to the house, no spending overnights at other kids’ houses, no meeting of friends’ parents – plus a restrictive curfew were enough to create tension between father and son.

And then the scenario Henry had prayed would never happen, happened. Abe saw him die. They’d been to the store to pick up some groceries when a truck lost control and careened in their direction. Henry had a split second to push his beloved son out of the way and to brace for impact. A second later he was in the East River praying with his first breath that Abe had survived.

After a scramble to find clothes and make it back to the intersection, Abe was nowhere to be found. At their apartment he found Abe bereft, sobbing into his mother’s apron at the loss of his father. As Abigail looked up at him, he knew that she had tried to tell him, but that it hadn’t worked. It was only the disbelief and awe in Abe’s eyes that sealed the truth. It was only when Abe ran at him and threw his arms around his middle, hugging the life back into him, that he knew they would be fine.

*

Finding out that Fawn had been ten year old Abe’s first kiss just before they moved had been heartbreaking for Henry. He’d done so much more damage than just uproot his son from his school friends, he’d severed his connection to his first love. Knowing the pain of losing Abigail, Henry felt a deep sense of guilt at what he’d made Abe give up in order to keep his secret.

Sitting at the kitchen table in the home they shared, Henry mused over the past and the fact that Abe had been given a second chance with Fawn decades later. Yes, Abe had had plenty of married time with his ex-wife Maureen, but there was something poetic about finding his first love again just as her own commitment had come to an end.

Adam had made him want to run, but Abe? Abe made him want to stay. Abe had given up the chance to travel the world with Maureen to remain here in New York, the city that had stolen Henry’s heart, with him. Try as he might, it was always where he returned no matter what the risk.

So what would happen when Fawn ran into him in the antique shop? How would Abe explain that the man Fawn had seen walking Abe to school now looked young enough to be Abe’s own son? Family resemblance only answered so many questions. Photos didn’t lie, which was why they were kept hidden away in Abe’s most secret places.

Still, they’d gone ages without having to explain to Maureen, but then Henry wasn’t happy to see Abe so little during those years. As much as he didn’t want to admit how few years Abe might have left, he didn’t want his only child to be sad and alone when he had a chance for a few more years of happiness, especially with a girl he’d lost his chance with as a boy.

In some ways Fawn was a greater danger than Adam, but if the prize was Abe’s happiness, that was something Henry would be willing to die for.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my beta.


End file.
